Zionism represents the gradual building up of a tradition which has little to do with the Bible or anthropological evidence. This religious ideology is rooted less in what the Bible says than in what the rabbis have written over the centuries.
Zionism is traceable to the Babylonian exile when the people of Judah yearned for restoration of the glory of Jerusalem. Once they returned to Palestine, they determined that they would never again be separated from the land. The Jewish yearning for a homeland has been reinforced by repeated experiences of separation and loss.
Zionism is well entrenched in American academia. Shaye Cohen at Harvard is one example. Melvin Konner at
The great Jewish gifts to the world - monotheism, the Ten Commandments, resistance against tyranny - were born in weakness in a group of tribes, then a kingdom, buffeted between great empires; nurtured in a series of bitter exiles; and annealed in genocide. This produced allegiance to a single all-powerful God who could protect them, a code of laws that maintained decency in the face of perversions of power, and a searing sense of injustice.
It simply isn't true that the Jews gave us monotheism. Monotheism existed in ancient Kush and Egypt before the Jews were identifiable as a people.
The Ten Commandments is indeed a gift from Judaism to the world, though it has antecedents in the oldest moral codes, such as the Law of Tehut.
Zionists attempt to validate the Jewish claim to the land by insisting that Jews have always been in Israel. This is expressed in Koller's book. He writes:
The Jews did not come to Israel from anywhere else at any time. They have been there from time immemorial. They became a coherent people there, discovered God there, built a kingdom there, created the Torah there, and composed much of the Talmud there. Attempts to evict them partly succeeded, but their presence there has always been significant. Wherever they were in exile they longed to go back there, and in every generation some did. Their presence there is permanent, and future attempts to evict them will incur a huge cost.
The Bible and anthropological evidence indicate that Horites lived in the area know as Judah and Northern Arabia and that Abraham's people were Horites, a caste of ruler-priests who were devotees of Horus, who was called "son of God." The Horite caste appears to be Nilotic in origin.
The Jews claim to be descendants of Abraham, but in fact, Abraham's ancestors came out of the Nile region of Africa. This is what Genesis tells us both explicity and through analysis of the Genesis king lists.
Genesis 10 tells us that Nimrod was a Kushite who built a kingdom in the area of Haran and Ur where, in Genesis 12, we find Abraham's father is a ruler. It is certainly true that the Kushites spread across a vast area of the ancient Afro-Asiatic Dominion, but this can't be said of the Jews, whose identity as a people emerges after their experience in Babylon.
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7 comments:
Zionism seems to me to be more of a political ideology rather than religious. Herzl was not religious and was from a secular family. As a matter of fact, the Haredi do not recognize the State of Israel because they believe only the Messiah can proclaim the Return. The Haredi are mostly indigenous orthodox Jews that never left even during the Babylonian diaspora.
Even though Zionism led to the establishment of Israel as a Jewish state, that was not the original intent. The Jewish people simply wanted a place where they could raise their children in peace. Many locations were considered, but Eretz Israel was the choice of the heart. I think Zionism was a secular movement.
Yes, largely secular. And one can sympathize with the desire to be able to raise your children in peace.
Alice,
I think we should find out what Monotheism actually is. Is it just belief in One God, or also an ethical code. In the ancient world for instance Jews had an ethical code that set them apart from other nations. Christians today in the face of a rising secular humanism that sees all values as subjective are facing similar issues.
"In the Syballine Oracles, written by an Egyptian Jew probably between 163 and 45 B.C., the author compared Jews to the other nations: The Jews "are mindful of holy wedlock, and they do not engage in impious intercourse with male children, as do Phoenicians, Egyptians, and Romans, specious Greece and many nations of others, Persians and Galatians and all Asia."
The early Christian apologist Justin Martyr in the 1st century wrote this
"And many, both men and women, who have been Christ's disciples from childhood, remain pure at the age of sixty or seventy years; and I boast that I could produce such from every race of men."
CHAPTER XXIX -- CONTINENCE OF CHRISTIANS.
"And again [we fear to expose children], lest some of them be not picked up, but die, and we become murderers. But whether we marry, it is only that we may bring up children; or whether we decline marriage, we live continently."
http://www.earlychristianwriti...
I am not that familiar with the ethical code of ancient religions, so perhaps you could help me out with this.
I have always held to the view that people's moral agreements have always been greater than their disagreements, and no civilization would survive otherwise.
Savvy
I do think Zionism is biblical, because God promised to bring back the Jews from all the nations where they were scattered.
Paul, talks about how "all Israel will one day be saved." He is not talking about individuals here, but Israel as a collective nation.
He could not have predicted this, if he did not see a future state of Israel.
Savvy
Monotheism is belief in one supreme Creator.
Most monotheists also recognize assisting divine powers such as angels, often perceived in a hierarchical rank: archangels, angels, etc.
The Syballine Oracles (163-45 B.C.) are interesting but not an official moral code. The oldest known law code is that of King Menes of Egypt. It is called the Law of Tehut and dates to about 5200 years ago. Menes made Memphis the capital of a united Egypt and administered justice and issued edicts which were designed to improve food production and distribution, guard the rights of ruling families, improve education and enhance knowledge of the natural world through geometry and astronomy.
Another ancient law code is the code of Ur-Nammu from the reign of King Shulgi (2095-2047 BC). It originally held 57 laws which covered family and inheritance law, rights of slaves and laborers, and agricultural and commercial tariffs. This code prescribes compensation for wrongs, as in this example: "If a man knocks out the eye of another man, he shall weigh out one-half a mina of silver." (Biblical Archaeology Review, Vol. 28, Sep/Oct 2002, p. 30.) This type of retributive justice was typical of ancient law codes.
The Code of Hammurabi dates to about 3750 years ago. Hammurabi was an Amorite (Semite) who became King of Babylon about the time that Abraham left his father’s house in Harran and settled in the land of Canaan. The ancient capital of Babylon was about 55 miles south of modern Baghdad.
Among the Horite priests, sexual purity was expected and homosex was regarded as a violation of the Creator God's order in creation. A very serious violation.
God did indeed promise to restore the Jewish captives to their home, and this was done through Cyrus the Great's Edict. Most of these captives were from Judah, the southern kingdom, and their roots there ran very deep.
God promised the land to Abraham and his descendants. Abraham had either 8 or 9 sons and by them many descendants, not all of them Jews. Presumably these descendants are to live in the Promised Land side by side in peace. That will be the sign of the Kingdom, when every tear shall be wiped away by the hand of God.
Thanks Alice,
Your research is extensive. Another question, I have was morality subjective, as is seen today, or was it objective in the ancient world?
Savvy
For Plato, who studied in Egypt, it was objective. Plato saw the creation as having a matematical or geometric quality which made right-wrong or good-evil knowable. For Aristotle, morality was subjective. His "Good" was determined by what enabled the individual to flourish. That said, both Plato and Aristotle believed that the happiness of the people depended on the moral goodness of the ruler. In thise sense, they agreed that moral goodness and happiness are linked.
Before Plato and Aristotle, the dominant worldview was that of the Afro-Asiatics and this was binary. The binary sets were used to determine morality or good from evil, and right from wrong. Such determinations were not up to the individual and they were objective in that they were based on universally observable binary sets.
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